


Wait Out the Storm

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural, Wayward Sisters - Fandom
Genre: Camping, Canon Compliant, F/F, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:33:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25730638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: Claire and Kaia are on a camping trip, when they get caught up in a freak storm.
Relationships: Kaia Nieves/Claire Novak
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Wait Out the Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shippers_Roost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shippers_Roost/gifts).



> Written for my friend, Dakota. Happy birthday!

“So… are we lost?”

Claire tried not to get annoyed at the question. It was a perfectly fair one. They should have arrived at the car half an hour ago, they had ran out of snacks, and the sun was getting perilously close to sinking in the horizon.

But she wasn’t ready to swallow her pride just yet.

“No, we’re not lost. We’re just… slightly disoriented.”

Kaia stopped walking and when Claire turned to look at her, she scanned her face closely.

“We’re lost.”

“No, we’re not!” Claire insisted. “I know exactly where we are.”

“Really? And where is that?”

Claire looked around for a moment.

“We’re… in the middle of the woods.”

Kaia scoffed. She rarely got crossed, but Claire figured the combination of being tired and hungry was not doing great things for her mood.

“I thought you said you were an expert at camping!”

“I said I _used_ to be an expert,” Claire replied.

She couldn’t really blame Kaia for the face she made.

Yes, this had been Claire’s brilliant idea. She wanted a weekend away with her girlfriend, could she really be blamed for that? No monsters, no calls in the middle of the night, no crisis. Just the two of them, cuddling under the infinite stars above their head. Maybe eating some s’mores. Having some fun.

Kaia… had taken some convincing.

“I don’t know. I mean… I already spent two years in an extended camping trip.”

“That was not the same thing at all,” Claire had protested. “This time it’ll be fun. It’s gonna be just the two of us. No monsters, I promise. Come on, babe.” She’d stretched her hand to squeeze Kaia’s. “Don’t you want to get away for a while?”

Kaia looked over her shoulder, at the sofa where they had been making out just moments before. Now Patience, Alex and Donna were eating popcorn in front of whatever movie or random series they’d kicked them out to watch because “You can’t monopolize furniture, Claire.”

Claire knew what Kaia was thinking, because it had been the exact same thing that had led her to propose the camping trip: she loved them, of course, they were her family and she’d do anything for them.

But Jody’s home wasn’t really designed to contain all that many people at once. And it got really awkward to find a spot just for the two of them when Patience was home for the summer instead of her college dorm, Alex had taken the night off and Donna had decided to visit them for the weekend.

In any other moment, Claire would’ve taken her truck and go investigate the closest violent death, even if there was no reason to suspect there was anything supernatural involved. But with Kaia there, back again after everything she had gone through, she didn’t want to leave her behind. She never wanted Kaia to feel like she was being left behind again.

She also couldn’t take her werewolf hunting or whatever. So, the only thing she could think up was the camping trip. In hindsight, though, maybe a road trip would’ve been better after all.

When they’d told Jody what they wanted to do, she’d immediately offered her cabin for them to stay for a while.

“I get you’re probably going stir crazy, but I’d rather you be somewhere where we can come and get you if something goes wrong.”

“Jody, it’s not a hunting trip,” Claire had insisted. “Besides, what is a camping trip without the tent and being outdoors?”

“I didn’t take you for the outdoorsy type,” Alex had commented.

“I’m not. I’m just tired of being indoors with all of you. Kaia agrees, don’t you, babe?”

“Umh… I mean… it might be nice,” she’d said. Claire had taken that as a sign that she was slowly warming up to the idea.

Jody had given them a look, the kind of maternal look filled with doubt and concern, and if she had expressed any of those feelings, Claire was ready to remind her she was no longer a stupid, impulsive kid that chased after rabid dogs thinking they were werewolves and Jody didn’t need to worry about her so much. It hadn’t been necessary, though, because Jody had sighed and nodded.

“Alright. Take the satellite phone in case you need anything.”

“I will, but we won’t be using it,” Claire had said, stubbornly. “We’re going to have the time of our lives.”

As they trekked among the trees without the faintest idea if they were going in the right direction or not, Claire started thinking maybe she should’ve accepted the offer to use Jody’s cabin after all.

But she couldn’t have suspected they would end up in that quandary. The two days they’d spent in the woods, camping by a nice stream of clean water, had been pretty great. They’d done all the things Claire imagined they could do, like fishing and relaxing and sleeping holding each other tight while the crickets serenade them outside the tent. It had been quite an amazing time.

“You know, I thought Alex was right,” Kaia had commented the first time Claire was able to start a fire so they could roast marshmallows. “I didn’t think you were the outdoors type, but you actually seem to be enjoying this.”

Claire didn’t even try to lie that she wasn’t.

“I used to be a Scout girl.”

“Really?” Kaia had asked. Her tone indicated that she was trying to hold back a laughter and Claire couldn’t blame.

“Yep. I got awarded badges for camping and everything.”

“Did you go out knocking on door selling cookies?”

“How did you think I got all the badges?” Claire had asked and Kaia laughed. It was a beautiful sound. “Yeah, I had a lot of fun with it. But you know, that was… that was before.”

She didn’t need to clarify with what she meant by “before”. Before was when both her parents were alive and well. Before when she slept every night, blissfully unaware of the things that happened right outside her door. Before, when she thought the monsters she and the other girls told each other about around the campfire were just that: tales.

Before Castiel.

Kaia had put her hand on hers and squeezed it. Perhaps to remind her that “before” was gone and there was no use mourning over it. “Before” had been okay, and what came after it was frankly depressing, but it was over. They were together “now”, and that was what really mattered.

It had really been an enjoyable trip. She’d loved spending some time alone with Kaia, just kicking around and not thinking about coming back. It was exactly what the doctor recommended.

The problem started on the third day, when they packed their stuff, cleaned the camp and set out to go back.

Claire was absolutely sure they were heading in the right direction; that they’d be back to where they’d left her truck in no time. But as they walked and walked and saw no signs of it, she started running a lot of nightmare scenarios in her mind, just because that was what she was used to doing. The first, most rational one was that someone had found it and stolen it. But of course, Claire’s mind was never satisfied with the rational arguments, so her second thought was that there was something supernatural in those woods, after all, something that was playing mind tricks on them and that was ready to pounce at them at a moment’s notice.

She didn’t even consider the possibility that they were just going in the wrong direction until Kaia brought it up.

“Maybe we should retrace our steps,” Kaia suggested. “Go back to the clearing and start over…”

“That will take hours,” Claire said. “I don’t want us to be here when the night falls.”

“Why not? We just put up the tent again and sleep it off.”

“We don’t have food.”

“We can fish or pick up some berries. It’s really not that big of a deal, Claire.”

“Jody is going to worry about us.”

“Yeah, I guess, but that’s why we have the satellite phone with us.”

Claire huffed and for a second or two, she refused to look at Kaia.

“Claire?” Kaia asked. “You did bring the satellite phone, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did! I’m not an idiot!”

“Great, so let’s use it!”

Claire took a second or two to breathe so her words wouldn’t come off as angry as she felt them.

“I don’t want to.”

Kaia stopped walking again, forcing Claire to turn towards her.

“Why the hell not?”

“Because I don’t want Jody to think she needs to come rescue us.”

“Are you serious right now?” Kaia said. “She won’t come if we tell her there’s no need for her to come!”

“You don’t know Jody like I do,” Claire said. “Let’s just keep walking.”

She turned around but she couldn’t even take a step before Kaia’s hand close around her arm tightly, locking her in place.

“Claire, you’re being obtuse,” she declared. “Just make the call, there’s no need for you to…”

A rolling thunder interrupted her. Kaia let go of her hand and threw an apprehensive look at the sky. There were grey clouds gathering in the horizon, but they seemed far away enough that the storm wouldn’t hit for a couple of hours.

At least, Claire wanted to believe it wouldn’t.

“We shouldn’t waste any time,” she said. “Come on.”

Kaia grabbed her hand again. Claire looked at her, frowning slightly.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Kaia said, though her tone was a little sharper than necessary. “I just don’t want us to get separated, that’s all.”

Claire doubted that would be a problem, but at least she had avoided the argument on whether they should call Jody or not. She grabbed her compass and try to remember which way was the road. She wasn’t worried. Kaia had survived in much harder conditions, right? There was no need to worry about a bit of rain.

She didn’t say that out loud, because Kaia was squeezing her hand a little tighter. She didn’t want her to worry.

They moved through the trees, the grass rustling under their sneakers. Claire adjusted their direction towards the west (that was where the road was, yes? They were bound to stumble upon it eventually), but she had to hold the compass closer to her face with every passing minute. The golden light of the twilight was dying out… or maybe it was that the wind had picked up and the grey clouds on the horizon were gathering too fast for Claire’s liking.

“Was there a storm announced for today?” Kaia asked, nervously.

“No,” Claire said. She had checked the weather and there wasn’t any sort of thing like that coming. She had been certain of it, because she didn’t want anything to ruin her weekend getaway with Kaia…

Then she remembered.

“It was supposed to be tomorrow night!”

“Well, apparently it decided to show up early,” Kaia said. It was impossible to tell from her tone if she was being sarcastic or not. She just sounded… nervous. “Are we any closer?”

Claire didn’t answer, simply because she had no idea how to.

“Claire!”

“We’ll get there. Let’s just keep walking…”

“For how long?” Kaia asked her. “Do you have any idea how close the storm is?”

Any answer at that point would be superfluous. The wind was now howling on the branches above their head and they’d seen several flocks of birds flapping away in the sky, trying to get away from the water. It was chillier and darker than before, and not only because the day had finally ended, but because the clouds had gone from grey to pitch dark in what felt like a matter of minutes.

“We’ll find the way…”

“No!” Kaia let go of her hand and stepped back. “If you had called Jody early we wouldn’t be in this situation! Why do you have to be so prideful and stubborn? Why couldn’t you just have called her?”

In any other circumstance, having Kaia screaming at her and saying things that were entirely true, but still hurtful, would have enraged Claire and she might have shouted back at her.

Right now, however, she couldn’t bring herself to get mad. Because Kaia was hugging herself, trembling, and her dark eyes were shiny with unshed tears.

“Kaia…” Claire started saying, stretching her hand towards her.

Another thunder roared over their heads. Kaia jumped backwards with a yell and before Claire could react, before she could even understand what was happening, Kaia had tossed her backpack aside and run like there were monsters on her trail.

“Kaia!” Claire shouted after her. “Kaia!”

But she was gone.

And what was worse, the sky opened up over her and it started raining. Just droplets that pattered over her head at the beginning, but as she made her way in the direction she thought Kaia had gone, they became more and more insistent. In no time, she was walking through a curtain of water, alone in the darkness, with her feet sinking on puddles of mud underneath her.

“Shit,” she muttered. “Shit, shit, shit…”

She found a space under a tree and frantically went through the bullshit she had in her backpack: the fishing rod, the bait, the lighter, the gas can…

Finally, her fingers closed over her flashlight. It’s shine seemed pathetic in the darkness of the woods, but she at least managed to hold it over until she could find the damn satellite phone.

“Hello?” Jody’s voice came off distant and half-drowned by static.

“Jody!” Claire said, relief washing over her. Or maybe it was just the storm that was pouring over her head, soaking her clothes. “Listen, Jody, we couldn’t find the way back to the car and Kaia got scared by the storm and…”

“Hello?” Jody repeated. “Hello? Claire, I can’t… you.”

“What?” Claire asked. “Jody, listen to me, the storm…”

“… you?” Jody asked, though the rest of her question was lost to the noise. “Kaia and… understand?”

“Jody?” Claire insisted, with the last of her fainting hope dimming down and dying. “Jody, I’m sorry! I should have called you sooner. Kaia said I should have. It was stupid, I was stupid. I just wanted to show her I could do something without you, but now we’re lost and I don’t know where she is and I can’t… I can’t lose her again. I’m sorry. Jody, can you hear me? Are you still there?”

The silence on the other end of the line was the most disheartening thing Claire had ever heard in her life. Her first impulse was to scream and throw the phone away, but just as she was swinging her arm back to do exactly that, she realized how stupid that was. Okay, maybe the storm was interfering with the signal right now, but it couldn’t rain forever. Jody knew they were in trouble and she was going to need a way to communicate with them if she was going to come out to look for them.

So gritting her teeth, she put the phone back in her backpack and stood up. Her flashlight revealed nothing in the dark except more tree trunks and mud. Her fury did very little to keep her warm, as she moved forwards. She hated this. She had survived far worse things, and being lost in the woods during a fucking freak storm was not going to be the thing that took her out.

“Kaia?” she called out. How far could she have gone? Yes, she was a fast runner, but there was no way she could have gone far on that treacherous terrain. “Kaia, where are you?”

“Claire!”

The voice came faint from behind some trees. Claire’s body tensed up as she turned around, her flashlight moving with her, shouting Kaia’s name one more time.

“Claire, be careful!” Kaia’s voice came over. “There’s a… there’s a slope…”

Claire immediately pointed her flashlight down. There was a part of the terrain that had sunken just past the line of trees. It was very steep, but she figured that if she had been running in a blind panic, she might have fallen down on it as well. Kaia was at the bottom of it, perched in a very uncomfortable position and drenched to the bone. She looked up with relief when she saw Claire.

“I’m sorry,” was the first thing she said, as if she had anything to apologize for.

“Shit. Babe, stay where you are!”

“I don’t… I don’t think I’m going anywhere. My ankle…”

Well, this gave a whole new definition to never raining put pouring, huh?

Claire looked around for a tree branch thick enough to support Kaia’s weight, but she found nothing. She opened her backpack and unceremoniously emptied its contents on the ground, all except for the stupid satellite phone, which she slid inside of her pocket as she moved over the slope again.

“Kaia, I’m going to pull you up,” she informed her. “Okay? It’s going to be okay. Just hang on to the strip and I’ll do the rest.”

“Are you sure? It could be…”

“It’s going to be okay,” Claire promised her, as if she had no lingering doubts that it would be. “Just hold on tight, okay?”

“Okay,” Kaia said. Her voice sounded broken, or that might have been because she was trembling so much. “Claire…”

Whatever she had to say, could wait until Claire had got her out of there. She knelt on the edge of the slope and threw the backpack down, stretching her arm as far as she could go. Kaia reached out for it, but her fingers were barely able to graze it. Claire leaned over as far as she dared. She couldn’t fall down as well, because then, what use would she be to Kaia?

Kaia’s fingers finally closed over the strip. Grunting through her gritted teeth, Claire started pulling up. Kaia tried to help her but between her busted ankle and the muddy terrain, she only slid down further. She kept pulling and moving back, inch by inch, her muscles tensed up and aching. She didn’t stop to think, she didn’t care if she pulled something. She just needed to get Kaia out of there.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she saw the crown of Kaia’s head poking up the edge of the slope. She stretched her hand to grab her by the clothes and with one last effort, Kaia was up with her again, rolling over the terrain and hanging on to her.

“Are you okay?” Claire asked.

Kaia seemed shaken, but she nodded. Her clothes were a mess of dirt and water and Claire figured she didn’t look much better herself.

“Can you walk?”

“I’ll try,” Kaia said, but the moment she tried to set her foot on the ground, she screamed out in pain as another thunder reverberated in the distance.

So, there was that. They needed to get somewhere… not dry, because she was starting to believe there wasn’t anywhere in the world that wasn’t wet, but at least somewhere they’d be safe from lightning. Claire remembered she passed a cave on the way there (or at least she thought it was a cave) and figured it was better than nothing.

“What are you doing?” Kaia asked when Claire leaned down.

“You can’t walk,” Claire said, simply. “Put your hands around my neck.”

“Claire, you can’t carry me…”

Claire ignored her protests and picked her up from the ground. It wasn’t that hard, really. Kaia weighed the same as a feather even though she was literally soaking wet and she had spent hours at the gym, making sure she could throw a punch as hard as any werewolf.

That wasn’t to say that she could trek for hours carrying her through treacherous ground, but luckily she didn’t have to. After a few minutes, she saw the opening of the cave in front of her.

“Are you sure there isn’t a bear in there?” Kaia asked when she realized where they were going.

“Doesn’t matter. I’ve fought things bigger than a bear.”

It was a little of bravado on her part, she knew. But Kaia needed to hear something like that.

They were lucky, though. The cave was empty. The ground was just as wet as everything else, but at least they weren’t under the pouring rain anymore. That had to count for something, right?

Claire carefully put Kaia down. She was trembling in her clothes. They had lost their blankets and their sleeping bags along with everything else, and Claire’s jacket was absolutely as wet as Kaia’s. So Claire opted for putting her arms around her and pull her close, rubbing her arms up and down quickly, in an attempt to make her own body start generating some heat.

“Are you okay?” Claire asked, after Kaia’s body seemed to tremble less and her teeth weren’t chattering quite as much.

“Yes,” Kaia said, even though she could have immediately complaint about all the things that were wrong right now with that situation. “I’m fine.”

“Good,” Claire said, holding on to her even tighter. “Good, that’s good.”

Kaia snuggled up against her and Claire left a kiss on top of her head. They were going to have to use the satellite phone (God, she hoped she hadn’t lost it, but she didn’t want to let go of Kaia to check her jacket’s pocket for it) and hope that Jody would be able to trace the signal to where they were. And if they didn’t? Well, it would be quite impossible to find wood dry enough to light a fire, but they could go back to the stream so they’d have clean water and look for wild berries to eat…

Kaia placed a hand on her cheek, cutting Claire’s thoughts short.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

Claire blinked at her, unable to process what she was saying.

“What are you apologizing for?”

“I shouldn’t have freaked out on you and run off,” Kaia explained. “We wouldn’t be in this mess if I had been to stay calm.”

“Babe, no.” Claire shook her head. “It was my fault. I should have called Jody when you told me to. You were right, we were lost and I just didn’t want to admit it.”

Kaia made a strangled sound that made Claire’s heart skip a beat with concern, but after a moment, she realized it was a laughter.

“You’re telling me now…”

“I’m sorry,” Claire said. “I just… didn’t want to make any mistakes around you.”

“Why not?”

It was impossible to know at her in the shadows of the night, but Claire still felt Kaia’s big black eyes stinging over her skin. It was embarrassing to even admit, but since they were in this situation, she might as well come clean.

“I want you to always feel safe around me. I want you to always think that I can protect you and you have nothing to fear when you’re with me.” She took a deep breath. “Maybe that’s why I suggested we came coming. So you would see it was different from everything you’ve been through, when we’re together.”

“Oh, Claire,” Kaia muttered. There was pity in those words, or so Claire thought. At the very least, a sense of amusement she wasn’t expecting.

“It’s stupid.”

“It’s… a little bit stupid,” Kaia agree, which in every other occasion, would have hurt Claire’s feelings. Given the situation, though, she didn’t feel like she had room to argue. “But it’s also very sweet. The thing is… everything I’ve been through, the way I’ve changed… that’s not just going to go away.”

“I know,” Claire admitted. “Or I should have known better.”

She had been through some shit too. She knew how it affected a person and how it was difficult to just let go of those things, even with a support network like Jody and all the others. She couldn’t magically fix Kaia’s trauma, as much as she wanted to.

“I appreciate the effort, though,” Kaia said.

Claire felt awkward, so she changed the topic.

“How’s the ankle?”

“It think it’s swelling a little…”

Claire moved to removed Kaia’s sneaker and socks, careful not to touch the hot skin when Kaia gasped in pain. She immediately went back to cuddling her, because the both of them suffering from hypothermia was probably the worst that could happen in that already shitty scenario.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated.

“It’s okay, Claire.” Kaia pressed her lips against Claire’s cheek, making her heart flutter and the knot in her stomach ease up a little. “You’re still my hero.”

Claire decided not to answer to that. She didn’t want Kaia to know there was a lump in her throat.

* * *

She tried calling Jody on the satellite phone a couple more times, but she couldn’t even get through. The storm must have really been messing things up. Kaia assured her she would be okay to wait until the morning, despite Claire’s mounting concern.

The cave wasn’t the most comfortable spot to sleep in and with how crappy Claire felt, she thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink. However, after a few minutes of listening to Kaia’s calm, regular breathing, her eyelids began to weight a ton. There was no problem if she closed them for a second, right? She would wake up if she heard anything weird. She knew…

When she opened her eyes again, the grey morning light was sliding inside of their cave. She still had her arms wrapped around Kaia, who was looking at her with concern. She sighed with relief as soon as her eyes met Claire’s.

“Good, you’re awake,” she said. “Quick, they’re coming to get us.”

“What?” Claire rubbed her eye with the hand that Kaia wasn’t using as a pillow. “What do you mean? Who’s coming to get us?”

“Jody and Donna. Probably Patience and Alex, too.”

Now that she was a little more awake, a whole host of questions appeared in her mind.

“What? How? Did you manage to get the satellite phone to work? What time did they storm stop…?”

“Oh, there was no need. I dreamwalked into Patience’s head and told her where we were.”

Claire stared at her for a second, then threw her head back and laughed.

“Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Well, maybe because you were so busy trying to fix the issue yourself.”

Claire didn’t even feel called out. She knew Kaia was right. She leaned over to kiss her, over and over for a few minutes.

“I promise, I’m never underestimating you again.”

“And…?”

“And I’m going to try and listen to what you need more.”

“And…?”

“And you’re amazing and I love you.”

Kaia chortled and kiss her one more time. It was a really nice distraction from the fact every inch of Claire’s body ached from having slept in that awful cave in wet clothes, but she couldn’t deny she was relieved when she heard voices calling out their names in the distance. Faint at first, but growing closer and closer each time.

“Well, that’s our cue,” said Claire, standing up and helping Kaia throw an arm around her neck to hold on. “You know, despite everything, I did have a good time.”

“Me too,” Kaia agreed as she limped out of the cage. “We should do it again, just… not anytime soon.”


End file.
